Gray
by petrelli heiress
Summary: Deep down - and there is always something if you look deep enough - lies something different in Gabriel Gray. Barely there, barely beating. All it needs is a reason. Yeah, my 'deep' fic. Mwahaha.


**Gray**

**Author's Note: Inspired by so many songs...I just can't name them all. Also inspired by a recurring dream I've been having about the one and only Gabriel Gray (one in which Peter played only a minor role, very different for me, believe me). My thoughts on Gabriel Sylar Gray, if you will. Hope you enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I do now own Heroes. Oh, please. Just kidding. I do not (and probably never will, dammit) own Heroes. **

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Let's take a look into the mind of one Gabriel Gray. People say, he's so broken, he snapped himself in two. But, deep down (and there is _always _something if you look deep enough), there lies something different.

What Gabriel Gray didn't understand about himself – and what everyone around him made sure he didn't – was that he wasn't two people, but one. He wasn't Gabriel _and _Sylar. He was both at the same time.

Gabriel Gray as a child had been scared of his dark thoughts, scared to think that he believed his family was insignificant, that he was better than them. It scared him to think what he would do to be special in the eyes of his parents, now in the eyes of everyone.

What he didn't understand, what no one had explained to him, was that everyone wished to be special. Everyone wanted to _matter_. None of us want to admit that we truly are insignificant in the great scheme of things.

Destiny is a tool – _everything _is destined, there ain't nothing we can do about it, buster. A depressing thought, really. Was Gabriel Gray fated to snap himself in two? If that _is _the case, is he also fated to have left a loophole?

The Gabriel now wasn't the same as the Gabriel of the past. This Gabriel was an angel, living up to his namesake. Beautiful, clean, pure. There were no dark thoughts in him. People said he was the soul, unsullied by human fear, anger, hatred.

Sylar, a name taken from an ordinary timepiece, was the exact opposite. A demon, dancing in the flames of hell, laughing over the empty shells of the people he butchered. Seductive, evil, dirty. People said he was the mind, analytical in a twisted, sadistic way.

And deep down, past the horrors of a mind torn asunder, so tiny it barely registers on either Gabriel or Sylar's radar as they fight for domination in a world of dreams and nightmares, a world neither can wake up from, it lies. Barely there, barely beating.

It does not yet have a name (names, it believes, are what got it into this mess in the first place). But if it did...well, if it did it would probably choose Gray. The name neither the soul nor the mind wanted because it meant accepting, embracing, the fact that maybe, just maybe, being ordinary, being insignificant wasn't so bad. After all, if people think of you as insignificant – merely a bug to crush on the windscreen of life – then they also underestimate you. It knew all about that.

Now that it came to think about it – and believe me, it had _plenty _of time in which to do so – Gray fit perfectly. Gray, a mixture of white and black. A mixture, _that_ was what it was. But then, aren't we all?

It rarely took part in the wars for domination which took up so much of Gabriel and Sylar's time. It felt it shouldn't draw attention to itself until the time was _absolutely _right. And then it would strike. Only then would it fix itself.

It needed to have something to fight for, though. It realised this early on. It was all very well fighting for domination but then once you were on top, you had to keep fighting, just to keep that position. Everyone who has fought their way to the top and felt the crown on their head knows the fight isn't over. And it was all very well to fight to fix itself but what _for_? What did it want, more than anything?

It wanted to matter. Oh, it already knew it _did _matter; it just needed someone to believe that too.

It saw a chance in everyone. But they would insist – absolutely _insist – _that Gabriel and Sylar were separate. That Gabriel was perfect, a human soul, getting their definitions of divine and human mixed. That Sylar was so very dirty, there was no chance anyone would ever be able to clean him up, no chance that he'd be made all shiny and new.

Sylar liked to manipulate. Gabriel didn't. That was why he almost always lost. Sylar would call himself Gabriel, tricking him into believing that there was a way, but it was always just that: a trick.

It watched them fight. It wanted to fight. But while Sylar has his almost constant need to manipulate and Gabriel has his ever increasing ridged morality it had nothing. It was confused.

It didn't know what it was. It had a name, at least. Gray. Names, it knew from experience, were important. Now it just had to find a reason, a reason to fight.

It had forgotten Peter Petrelli until that night. Sylar mocked him, Gabriel pitied him. It only knew what they knew. Peter Petrelli was the hero of the piece. But then, life is never as simple as fairy tales make it out to be. Sometimes there is no hero. Sometimes the hero is as messed up and twisted as the villain. But then, that was the trouble. Humans were neither all good nor all evil. They were both, a mixture. Enough literature has been written about it. It guessed that people just don't listen.

Heroes live the way the world should be, not the way it is. Had it heard that somewhere before, or was it an original thought? It didn't really matter. Sylar was using it now, taunting Peter with his failures. Was this the way a hero should live? Scarred (ooh, yes, Sylar absolutely _loved _that part), twisted, wanting to die but not knowing how.

At least he can admit he's evil, he says. We're the same, you and I. Embrace it, Peter, just _accept_ it.

He should really take his own advice, it thought.

It realised then – while Sylar was busy thinking up ways to truly fuck Peter up and Gabriel was trying to fight a battle he'd eventually lose – that this was its moment. _The _moment.

The moment in which everything could change. Because of a distraction. Because of Peter Petrelli. Because, no matter how much it tried to deny it (something it rarely did), it realised it was as obsessed with him as Gabriel and Sylar were. But then, it shrugged, they were one. Not really that hard to see it happening, now that it came to think about it.

With one swift, sudden, surprising move, it took control.

Peter watched in frank amazement as Sylar's body thrashed for a moment, his head snapping back, a totally new expression on his face. Desperate eyes looked into Peter's shocked ones.

"Fix me, Peter," it said through a mouth it had long ago lost the use for.

As Peter continued to gaze, mouth hanging open by now, and Gabriel and Sylar began to recover from their shock, it grew impatient. "Get up, you moron! Help me! That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it?" it sneered. "Be a hero, for once in your fucking pathetic life!"

Peter blinked and reached a hand out, laying it gently against his, its their cheek. Gabriel and Sylar stopped their violent grumbling in an instant.

It felt Peter's prescience a second later. It couldn't help but grumble, "Oh Lord, not another one." It heard him chuckle.

Gabriel and Sylar watched suspiciously. They both knew their only chance at pushing Peter _out _was to work together, and _that _was something they would never do.

"Well, well," it heard Peter say after a quick examination. "You really _are _broken, aren't you..." It felt Peter search, heard him smile. "Gray? Interesting..."

And then there was the _**pain**_. It hurt far more than the splitting of his, its, their mind had, all those years ago. It was pure, utter agony – a white, burning heat that seared him, it, them to his, its, their very core.

And then there was only him.

He opened his eyes.

"So," he said awkwardly, gazing at Peter, who realised he might be just a bit too close (really, Peter thought, he's redefined the meaning of 'personal space') and stepped away quickly. "You finally did it. Took you long enough."

Peter blinked, confused. Sylar, Gray, whatever his name was, did not sound very different.

"Of course I wouldn't," the man in front of him said, smirking. "Was _that _what you were expecting? Something different? Something _nice_? Don't try understanding it," he added, just as Peter opened his mouth to ask how in the hell did he know what he was thinking? "Believe me, I've tried. Enormous headache."

He shook his head. "But you want to know my name, I suppose." He smiled. "Can't you see it, Peter? The flawed, the insignificant, the underestimated..."

Peter smiled.

"Gray."

The heart.

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**Could he have saved himself without Peter's help? Aren't we all supposed to be able to do that? But then, sometimes you just need someone to _believe_. **

**Yes, my brain = weird. If you haven't realised that yet...well, I'm afraid there's not help for you. **

**Review please. **


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